


Bush in the Garden

by mothandpidgeon



Category: Hornblower (TV), Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: Bush sisters, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, Siblings, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:13:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26483974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothandpidgeon/pseuds/mothandpidgeon
Summary: A little Bush gardening fluff.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	Bush in the Garden

**Author's Note:**

> After reading [sanguinity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity)'s [The Adventures of Goatratio Hornblower](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23747194), I was craving more Bush sisters and some gardening fluff. Apologies for any overlapping between her take on the sisters and my own.

Bush was at his best doing work which called for single minded attention to a single duty. He liked to work, to be busy. Which was why he found himself in the garden more and more. It had been almost a month since his return to Chichester and he had made it a habit to spend his mornings amongst the rows of greens and flowers before the sun was at its highest.

Will pushed his fingers into the soft soil. It was still damp from the rain that had come through the night before and it smelled musty and sweet. He tugged a butter-colored dandelion out by the roots. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbow and his neckerchief hung loose. Soon his forehead would be dotted with sweat. But he liked the solitary work.

While this was his home, the very same stone cottage in which he had been a boy, he often felt out of place there. It was as though he were a guest, upsetting the order and routine of the place. The household had gotten on for over ten years without him so he had little in the way of responsibilities. 

Though he was always in want of employment at home, he never had a moment of solace. It always confounded him that he could feel at ease surrounded by the hundreds of men under his command but a few days cooped up with his mother and four sisters was enough to drive him to madness. He loved them all dearly (and certainly enjoyed the fresh meals and clean laundry) but just as often wondered why he couldn’t have been blessed with brothers. So much talking, so many emotions, so many frivolous concerns. Bush was used to keeping his eyes forward and mouth shut. His sisters, it seemed, had never heard of the concept of silence. So he amused himself out of doors.

Their little garden was a thing of beauty. It smelled like lavender and moss and the bees were often very happy there, though they scared little Fanny. Damask rose climbed the eastern wall of the cottage. Pretty pink holly hocks and bright sweet williams lined the stone walk, the latter his mother’s favorite flower and therefore his namesake. But the garden was as practical as it was ornamental. There were lines of cabbage and onions and potatoes. Around the edges were elderberry bushes and some slim cherry trees. His sister, Marianne, was particularly skilled at turning their berries into jams and puddings. Will sometimes wondered what she might do with a pineapple should she get one into the kitchen. 

The irony wasn’t lost on Bush that a man who spent most of his life on water now enjoyed digging in the earth with such passion. He didn’t consider himself a man of learning and couldn’t be bothered to know the scientific names of anything that grew in the garden. He liked that the air was fresh and he could feel the sun on his shoulders. Best of all, his mind was quiet. He would never admit to having bothersome thoughts; it was just a happy coincidence that he enjoyed work that kept him fully engaged. He put all of his attention on staking vines of beans instead of worrying about the constraints of half pay. He pulled up hearty parsnips when he felt the pains that sometimes shot through his middle. And today he focused on hunting the weeds that grew between the foxglove and primrose instead of wondering what Hornblower was doing. 

Surely the young man was faring better than he. That thought always seemed to sour Will’s feelings on gardening and he wiped perspiration from his cheek with the back of his hand. What would Horatio say if he saw him now, mucking about on his hands and knees? It was hardly dignified. 

Will was left to his melancholy for only a moment before he heard a familiar voice behind him. 

“You thought you could hide, Monsieur Bush. But we meet again, mes ami.”

He froze but the corner of his mouth curled into a grin. 

“Ah, you’ve found me at last,” he said. 

“You cannot run any longer, monsieur,” Bush heard. “Surrender now and we will let your sisters live.” 

“Surrender to you?” He snarled. His soiled fingers wrapped carefully around the trowel that lay beside him. He leapt to his feet. “NEVER!” 

Will held the garden tool up as though it were his own sword. His nine-year-old sister screamed with delight as he rounded on her. She brandished a long stick in her hands like a cutlass. 

Fanny was a round-faced girl, the youngest of Will’s sisters. When he was home, Will was her favorite plaything. She had grown almost to his waist since last he’d been in Chichester, from a pudgy child to a lanky girl. She always seemed to have scrapes on her elbows and had recently chipped one of her front teeth. 

Fanny began to swing her sword at him, hitting at the trowel with her branch. 

“En garde!” She squealed in that silly fake accent. He wondered where she’d picked that up. 

“You’re no match for me, Boney!” Will yelled. 

He parried her attack, wood hitting metal. Will let his sister slap at his fingers with the stick, certainly not a very sporting move but she was a child, not a gentleman in combat. He dramatically flung the trowel from his grip and Fanny came in for her final attack. She stabbed at his belly with the stick. 

“Got you!” She shouted. 

Will clutched his stomach. Beneath his shirt there were angry red scars but, of course, Fanny didn’t know that. She was too young to be told that her brother had almost died in battle. 

He dropped to his knees with a cry. Fanny laughed at his performance. 

“Please, Monsieur Boneparte! Have mercy on me!” He plead. 

“Die, you English dog!” She yelled.

Fanny stuck him again. Will groaned and fell onto his back. 

“I think I’m done for! Tell my sister I love her!” He wailed and then let his head loll to the side, dead. 

“I won!” Fanny yelled, waving her sword stick in victory. 

Will stayed motionless. 

“Will!” She complained. 

He refused to move. She nudged at him. “I know you’re not really dead,” she said. 

He opened one eye and shut it just as fast. 

“Will!” She shouted again and dove onto him. 

He let out a grunt as he caught her little body. Her knees connected with the place where he’d been run through on the  _ Renown _ and he hissed but swallowed down the pain. It released a bittersweet feeling there too. Will responded in kind by tickling Fanny’s sides and the pair became a pile of laughter. 

“Fanny, what are you doing?” Emma scolded. Will’s eldest sister had come out of the kitchen with a basket on her hip just in time to catch Fanny pouncing. “How many times must I tell you to let William alone?”

“We were playing Napoleon,” Fanny whined. 

Will lay catching his breath. 

“Playing? Am I to believe there is a bowl of peeled turnips in that kitchen, Frances? And the floor is swept?” Emma asked.

“I’ll do it later!” Fanny stood up, her skirts covered in grass. Her brown hair was matted wildly against her forehead. 

“Look at yourself!” Emma cried. “Who’s going to wash those clothes?”

Fanny sighed and kicked at the ground.

Emma was as fearsome to their sisters as Will was to his men. She was just shy of a year younger than Will but she had not married yet-- too busy caring for their mother and sisters. She was a handsome young woman with the same clear, blue eyes as her brother but hers were often shadowed by tired, dark circles. 

“You’ll do it now. Go on,” Emma told the girl. 

Will sat up on his elbows as Fanny looked at him to defend her. 

“Alright. Do your chores, you Corsican fiend,” he said.

“But-“ 

“That’s an order,” Will said. 

Obediently Fanny sulked back into the house. Emma dropped the basket at her feet and began to pull the dry linens off of the clothes line, shaking her head. 

“You needn’t be so severe,” Will said, picking himself off of the ground and dusting the dirt where he could reach. “She’s no bother.” 

“Oh no? It doesn’t bother you that she’s wrestling in the garden like a little sailor?”

“She’s a spirited girl,” Will smiled. He sometimes imagined Fanny bounding down the deck with the powder boys. 

“Well she ought to learn to be a respectable one,” she retorted. “Or at least a useful one.” 

Will went to reach for a shirt off the line so he could be useful himself but Emma snapped, “Don’t touch that. Your hands are filthy.”

She ripped the shirt down and began folding it herself. 

“It’s not fair. You’re here only a few short weeks and then you’re off again, sailing to...heaven knows where. And I’m left here to undo all of the bad manners you’ve instilled in her.” 

Will wanted to protest but he knew better than to argue with Emma. 

“I might be home longer than it pleases you. The war’s over,” Will said. Every time he remembered that he felt a pang. Homesick though he was in his own garden. When would he find himself aboard a ship again? When would he hold a real sword in his hand instead of shears and pruners? 

“Well then,” Emma said, foisting the basket of clean laundry into his arms, “consider me your commanding officer.”

Will chuckled. “Aye aye.” 


End file.
